I copied this from a post by "Timbo" on the Delta TA thread. I hope he doesn't mind me posting it. Its an excellent take on a lot of things that apply to us at NK.


In my 30 years at Delta, I have seen 5 management teams and 8 contract negotiations. The only contract where we got a significant raise and retro active pay was in C2K, and that took 18 months of fighting with management, and a slogan, "Restore the Profession", and we did...for 4 years.

Good contracts do not come easily. They don't come quickly. If you want a truly historic contract you have to work hard to achieve it and you have to wait out management's BS, that they just cannot afford it. This TA actually makes money for management, not for us.

Right now, we have the best negotiating environment I have ever seen. When we did C2K, Delta had earned $1 Billion, which at the time, was a huge, never before seen profit. Last year, Delta earned $4.5 Billion. This year, Delta should earn about $6 Billion.

Our DB plan was underfunded by about $4 Billion when Delta gave it to the PBGC, and our pay cuts in 2005 were about $1.3 Billion. We are still 18% below our 2004 pay rates, and our retirement funding is tiny compared to what our DB plans were worth at the time, never mind what they would be worth going forward.

The company announced they are going to give $6 Billion to the shareholders, before they restore our sacrifices. They threw this piece of crap at us just for fun, to see if we are stupid enough to fall for a quick 8% raise, funded by concessions throughout the rest of the contract. I don't blame them for trying, but I do blame our MEC for buying into it.

We need to shoot this POS down now, and then we need to reorganize and formulate a new MEC, and a new strategy, because Proactive Appeasement has failed us, obviously, and we need to return to traditional negotiating strategy if we want to restore our profession, where Labor Risk is on the table, where it belongs.

So don't let yourself get all stressed out about this contract. But do tell your friends if they want a better contract, it's going to take a year or so, maybe more. Be patient. Don't stress out, get a puppy, or go fishing, or to the beach, just vote no and then sit back and wait. The sun will come up tomorrow and if Richard wants the Money Making Machine to keep minting billions, he's going to have to come back with a much, much better offer, or the operational performance will start to suffer, no doubt.

No bucks, no Buck Rogers.